The Last Conversation
by Aki and Tenshi
Summary: He wasn't scared to die, at least not so much anymore. Regulus finds closure over his iminent death after a conversation with his estranged cousin, Andromeda. One shot. By Aki.


**Aki-** this is a oneshote that poped into my mind and kept forming that I wrote it in my notebook during school instead of paying attention in Algebra and other boring classes like that. I am recently obsessed with the Black family dynamics with Sirius and Regulas and Andromeda and Tonks and Bellatrix and all the rest. Whatever, you probably don't care.

**The Last Conversation**

He bit the inside of his bottom lip nervously as he glanced up and down the empty street before darting around the corner to the small house at the end of the lane. He knocked on the painted white door and waiting impatiently outside bouncing on the balls of his feet.

He knocked again on the door, harder this time and a muffled voice from inside yelled, "Coming," in return. He heard the sound of several locks being unbolted before the door was opened just a crack, a chain still securing it from the inside.

"Reg?" asked a skeptically curious voice, using his childhood nickname.

"Hey Andy," he replied with a somber, forced grin.

Andromeda, his cousin, closed the front door, undid the chain lock, and opened the door the full way.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Umm…" he glanced urgently up and down the street yet again before asking, "Can I come in?"

Andromeda observed her younger cousin for a moment in attempt to read whether he was sincere or this was a trick. After a moment she stepped back, giving him room to enter. He observed the interior of the dwelling. To his left their was a white staircase leading to the floor above and to the right was a cluttered sitting room which was filled with mismatched furniture around a worn coffee table.

"I wasn't expecting company," said Andromeda in attempt to explain the mess. A half folded basket of laundry was sitting on a gray pinstripe loveseat and a few children's toys were left scattered on the floor. Regulas dodged the, as he approached the chipped mantel which held a mixture of wizard photos and muggle stills.

"Is this your daughter?" he asked, picking up a framed photograph of a young girl with her mousy brown hair in braided pigtails and a mischievous grin.

"Yeah," answered Andy, coming to stand by her cousin, beaming with motherly pride. "That's my little Dora."

Regulas gazed at the picture of the girl he never met, who he never would meet, before replacing it on the wooden mantel over the empty, ash filled fireplace.

Andromeda placed a gentle hand on Regulas shoulder. "You look a bit peekish. Come to the kitchen and I'll make us some teas if you like."

"Or something stronger," he muttered as he followed her through a door way to a small, yet cozy kitchen with a blue and white tiled floor and small round table with four chairs in the center.

"Sit," she commanded and Regulas complied sinking into a chair. Andromeda busied herself with making tea for the next few minutes, allowing both to have precious minutes of silence were they could pretend that this was normal and they hadn't not talked to each other in years.

"Where's Ted?" asked Regulas casually. It surprised Andy that he even knew her husband's name.

"Him and Dora are visiting his parents."

Regulas nodded, but said soothing more. A minute later Andromeda placed a cup of tea in front of Reg and sat down herself. He took a sip of the tea. He coughed into his fist as he set the cup down.

"It's strong," he commented.

"Irish tea," Andromeda answered with a smirk. Regulas noted the glass bottle on the kitchen counter half filled with dark brown liquid, fire whiskey.

He took another sip. "It's good."

"Reg," said Andy slowly after taking a drink from her own tea, "What are you doing here?"

Regulas sighed and ran his finger through his short charcoal black hair before letting his bangs fall back into his small dark eyes in his pale, slim face.

"I needed to talk to someone," he answered,

"Why me?" asked Andromeda. They had never been particularly close due to the age difference and plus the fact that she was, well, a blood- traitor.

"Reg…" she looked at her younger cousin with pity. He averted his gaze, unwilling to meet her sympathetic eyes with his shamed ones.

"Andromeda… Andy, you know what I've done, what I've become," said Regulas, clutching his left forearm unconsciously.

Andromeda reached across the table and touched her cousin's arm, but he drew it away.

"It's obvious who half the death eaters are, just no one has any proof. No one wants to say anything. It's all the pureblood maniacs. The Malfoys, the Lestranges, … the Blacks," he added satirically, lifting up his cup in a mock salute.

"Reg, why are you really here?"

He bowed his head. "I needed someone to know…someone to care."

"Care about what?" asked Andy on a tense whisper.

Regulas' looked up at his cousin, "To care that I'll be dead by next week, it not by tomorrow morning."

Andromeda started at him wide-eyed. "What do you mean?"

"I couldn't-," his voice faltered before he repeated more powerfully, "I couldn't do this. I can't be a death eater anymore."

"So you just quit?!"

"Yeah," replied softly, resting his heads in his hand, kneading his brow. "And I signed my death sentence doing so."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm not gonna' run if that's what you mean," he retorted. "I'm done being a coward."

He thought of Slytherin's locket tucked away unnoticeably among a horde of Black heirlooms in the cabinet in the drawing room at number twelve Grimmauld Place with his widowed mother and the last house elf having no clue.

"You see," he started, "I'm against _him _now. I stole his…never mind. It's too long to go into now. I probably should go. I don't want anyone to know I was here. I don't want to put you in danger.

Andromeda laughed, "Reg, I'm a blood traitor married to a muggle-born in the middle of a bloody war. I'm in danger, with or without you."

"Still," said Regulas, standing. "I should get going."

Andromeda stood, following his suit and walked over to him. "Fine," she said before surprising him with a tender hug. "Just remember," she whispered in his ear, "If things turn about better than you think you've always got a place to come.

She released him and stepped back. "Thanks," he muttered embarrassingly to her.

"That's what family is for."

Regulas' eyes turned sad. "Um…Andy, next time you see Sirius can you tell him that- that I-"

"That you did good?" she supplied with a small smile.

"Yeah, that, and that I'm sorry and that he was right. You both were."

"He'd like it more coming from you."

"I –I wouldn't know where to find him. Plus, he probably wouldn't want to see me anyway."

"I don't believe that," said Andy adamantly.

He shook his head sadly. "You don't know what I've done. I haven't talked to him since-"

"Since she ran away from home," suggested Andy again.

Regulas nodded. "He sent me letters that whole first year after he left. I never wrote back…I can't face him now. So please, promise you'll tell him for me."

"I promise," swore Andromeda. She didn't know she wasn't going to see Sirius again for a very longtime and by that time this promise would have long dropped into the back of her mind. She did not know that in a few days time Sirius would be going into hiding as a supposed Secret Keeper for the Potters and would be accused of murder and sent to Azkaban for twelve years.

"Bye," he said.

"Bye," replied Andy, but he had already apparated.

He was waking alone in the slums of London later that night in attempt to clear his head and find a place to spend the night. Dark thoughts taunted him as to who may be waiting for him at Grimmauld Place. He wondered how many death eaters were out searching for him. He shivered, half from the cold, half from fear. His mind wandered back to what may have been his last conversation, his last real conversation. It was a morbid thought, but comforting at the same time. At least he knew someone cared.

"Ah, isn't it my little cousin Reggie," crooned a sickly cruel voice from behind him. He paused, standing straight and stiff.

"Bella," he said. Any other time he heard her speak like that he would have quivered in fear, even if was on his side. But now he was calm. Deathly calm. He knew what was coming.

She walked slowly around him to face him. "It's a pity," said Bellatrix, her black cloak billowing in the wind. "You had _so_ much potential…"

Regulas said nothing but just watched her with stony eyes.

"You could have been great," she said reaching out and touching the side of his face, but he jerked away. She smiled maliciously.

"But you threw it all away," she said, her voice becoming cold and grave. "If you had only known what was good for you."

"I do know what is good for me, Bella. More than you," Regulas said, trying to convince himself even as he said it.

"Well," she said with a smirk, "Your _good_ had brought you to your own end.

"I'm not afraid to die," Regulas told her, his voice weaker than he liked. "Not anymore."

And what surprised Regulas the most was he believed it, felt it even. Yes, he was hardly twenty. Yes, he had just begun to live. Yet still, he wasn't afraid.

He wasn't dieing with no one caring. He wasn't dieing without a friend. He wasn't dieing a coward. He wasn't dieing without trying to do right even if the world would ever know, but he knew that at least one day Sirius would know. Know what he died for.

Regulas knew this all because of his last conversation. He didn't see Bellatrix drawl her wand or say that killing curse, but he knew just like his fear has dwindled he wasn't ashamed, not so much, anymore.


End file.
